Timeless
by BrusselsSprout
Summary: As Fitz and Simmons try to figure out how to be reunited again and save the world in the process, they need to meander through time and universes trying to leave breadcrumbs for each other that hopefully will lead to a single place.
1. Chapter 1

"Do you really think it's a good idea to go through a monolith with no plan how to get back, mate? Fitz, even _I_ think that's reckless, and we both know that common sense is not my strong suit…" Hunter's exasperated voice was the last thing he took with him as he stepped forward to hurl himself into the unknown.

 _I've done the math, it should work in theory_ , he thought. Then again, after losing his work, his friends, his love and himself in one fell swoop, what else did he have to lose? As his whole world has disintegrated in the span of a week, he was stripped of all attachments. All that was left was the cold machine of his mind in pursuit of a single objective – find her or die trying. This world that didn't have her in it was not his home anymore.

The portal was different– instead of being sucked through a hole punched through the universe, this time he felt suspended, frozen in time. He thought for a moment that he saw the contours of a spaceship, but was blinded by a white flash, which was the last thing he saw before he blacked out.

When he opened his eyes, and saw the tubes connected to his arms, his first thought was that he must have made an error and instead of the future, he ended up in the past, just waking up from his coma – back when he was still a good guy, back in a place where a future together with Jemma was still a possibility. He thought back with derision to that guy with the brain damage who felt so sorry for himself, who thought he had lost everything. _You had no idea, boy, what it is to have nothing left_.

 _That's not how time travel works_ , he chided himself. Then again, who really knew how time travel worked? As a quantum physicist he knew of course the _theories_ , but the engineer in him preferred tests and experiments. He noticed that something was strange about the tubes – they didn't quite look like anything they poked him with during his long hospital stay. There were no needles, the tube looked almost like a living being – some kind of creepy-crawly creature attaching itself to his skin with long yellowish tentacles.

He tried to sit up but hit an invisible barrier. He craned his neck trying to orient himself. The room was mostly white and looked oddly like a lab – it had a trippy space movie quality to it with strange looking gizmos.

"Hello – can anyone hear me?" Fitz called out. "I'd like to sit up." His bed suddenly raised itself into an upright position and bended seamlessly into a chair. He could not see any controls or anyone operating them. He was sure there was someone watching him, though he could not see any video cameras in the room.

"Thank you." he said anyways. He tried to take off the wires but they seemed to dig into his skin more as he pulled on them. He hissed from the stinging pain.

"You cannot remove those yet." a distorted computer-voice said filling the room.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am the one asking the questions here." the voice said. "Identify yourself."

"My name is Fitz. I am looking for my team. Coulson, Mack, Daisy, Yoyo, May and Jemma. Have you seen them? Are you keeping them here too?"

"What are you?" the voice demanded.

"What do you mean?" Fitz wondered. "I am a scientist. I'm an Agent of SHIELD. "

"Are you human?" That was a strange question. Maybe in the future, humans had to deal with alien spies?

"Yes, of course, I'm bloody human. What else?" Fitz was starting to lose his patience with his captor.

"How is it possible? All humans have been destroyed."

"What do you mean?" Fitz's mind raced – how far into the future did he travel?

"There was a cataclysmic event. The planet your people called Earth was destroyed." the computer voice continued matter-of-factly.

"What event…What happened?" he felt disoriented.

"Let me show you…"

Fitz looked in horror at the hologram projected in front of him, showing the Earth ripped apart as it had been blown to pieces from the inside.

"I don't understand. It wasn't a meteor or comet…" he wondered out aloud.

"We don't know exactly what happened." the sound said. "Our telescopes picked up the images."

"Who is we?" Fitz asked. "And how do you speak our language?"

"Our race is very old and we are dying. But the blood of humans sustains us, it keeps us alive. We need to keep your kind to survive. So, we have been studying your kind for a long time. Collecting tissue samples and harvesting blood."

"Oh, so you are parasites then?" Fitz knew that it wasn't exactly a smart move to anger his captor, but he was beyond caring.

"I prefer the word symbiosis. We peacefully co-exist. How did you survive? Are there more?" the voice demanded.

"No, I came through a portal, from the past, I suppose. Before it all happened." Fitz replied.

"I see. Then you have to go back and change the future." the voice urged him.

"That's absurd. The future cannot be changed." Fitz said dejectedly. _The last of my kind he thought_ and felt a terrifying loneliness.

"Maybe not in this universe, but there are many worlds, and in those, you can change what happens. Every moment is a spiderweb, with infinite outcomes. It is true that you cannot change this particular thread of the web, but there are many more worlds you can save. Sometimes the threads cross again in a single point. You have to change things, Mr Fitz. For the sake of your race and mine. We will help you."

"If you want my help, then let me out of here. Do you have a name?" Fitz asked as the tubes fell away from his arm.

"Call me Enoch. Where do we start?"

"Well, then Enoch. Before we can change the past, we need to figure out what happened. We need survivors who can tell the story."

Jemma's mind was organized, just like her room and her lab. Every piece of information had its place. Neat rows of files, organized by date, time, subject matter; colour coded for fast retrieval. There was only one corner; the cottage as she liked to call it, where she let herself roam free. It was their place; a place where she could let her emotions flow free, where spontaneity ruled.

After they arrived through the portal, she was at first relieved when she realized that Fitz wasn't there. He was back home, safe (at least relatively) and he could work on a solution. It was just a matter of time before he would find them. She wouldn't give up on him, _not this time_ she resolved.

But when she realized that they didn't travel through space, but through time, she felt empty. Fitz always said that the future couldn't be changed – so if he wasn't here it meant that he moved on or died trying but never managed to change their fate. _My future with Jemma is dead._ His words came back as ghost to mock her. He was talking about something else, of course, but turned out to be right again. Maybe they were _cursed_ after all. They would forever remain separated by the labyrinth of time.

The thought was unbearable and Jemma locked the cottage in her mind with all her feelings, memories, hopes and dreams in it so she could focus. If he couldn't change the future, maybe she could find a way back to the past. She needed to focus and thinking about Fitz was sure to lead to breakdown, which was a luxury she couldn't afford. She got through her captivity with Kasius by shutting down all her emotions until she was finally reunited with the others.

When she got the postcard from Coulson, all those shut down feelings started to rush back. Staring in disbelief at the familiar handwriting on the back of the faded postcard and in the notebook, she opened the door of that cottage in her mind. Sparking blue eyes looked at her, _so you finally found it, Jemma_. She wanted to shake him. _I don't understand Fitz, what does it mean?_

He looked at her with a strange gleam in his eyes. _Don't' you get it?_ _I left that message, because I believe we can change things. We promised we wouldn't let anything rip us apart. Not space, not dimensions, realities. Certainly not time. Are you with me?_

 _But you said we cannot change the future._ She argued with him.

 _Yes, we can, maybe not here. But we can find a universe out of infinite universes, the one we need to save. We can fix it, together, Jemma._ _I don't trust anyone else, but you know how it works. We need to be careful. We need to_ …"

"… _change the past to change the future."_ She understood now. The postcard wasn't just a where, it was a when. Time and place. A rendezvous point.

"Are you OK, Simmons?" May's worried voice broke her inner conversation.

"Yes. I think I know what I need to do. I need to find Fitz." she said.

"You know how to get us back?" Daisy looked at her hopefully.

"No, not yet. But we'll figure it out together. I just need to find him first." she repeated.

"Shouldn't we all go together?" Coulson asked.

"We can't. If there is one thing we learnt from the Framework is that the tiniest change in the past can affect the future. "

"Like the butterfly and tide thing?" Daisy interrupted.

"Exactly." nodded Jemma. "The more of us go, the more changes we affect. And it will become more and more difficult to figure things out."

"So you want to go alone."

"Yes, and I know where the Kree keep the monolith. I saw it. I just need to go through these calculations, I think I can figure out how the monolith is supposed to work. We will come back for you – you know that." she looked at them.

"Where are you going?" May asked.

"Well, of course to Lake Ontario. And to the time they started to build this place." Jemma said. "If Fitz shows up in the meantime, tell him to stay put."

"As if it was possible to reason with Fitz when it comes to you…" quipped Mack.

"Do you know how to get back here?" Coulson asked.

"I am sure there will be a clue on the other side." she said. There had to be something.

"Good luck, Jemma." Daisy hugged her.

"I'll come back for you. I promise." she said.


	2. Chapter 2

Peggy Carter sat at the hotel bar, waiting. She read the mysterious message she found under her hotel door over and over again. " _I have news about Steve. Meet me at 10 in the bar downstairs_."

A young man sat down next to her. He smiled and nodded at her and she noticed his remarkably blue eyes. He had thick curly hair and a somewhat messy beard.

"A beer please." he asked the barman. Then he quietly told her "Thank you for coming, Ms Carter. You need to hear me out."

"Who are you? Why all the cloak and dagger?" she asked looking around to see if it was a trap.

"It is important for me to stay in the shadows. My name is Leopold Fitz, but you can never put it in a file. Or this meeting of ours, in fact." the young man replied.

Peggy Carter thought it was quite preposterous of this man to tell her what she could or could not do. "Why should I trust you, Mr Fitz?" she asked coolly.

He looked at her with a level gaze and said in a low, but clear voice, emphasizing all the words. "Because I am an agent of SHIELD."

Peggy looked at him in disbelief. How could he know of her plan? SHIELD was her vision, but she has barely started…"How is that possible? I've never told anyone… yet…"

He nodded. "But it will happen. What you start as a project to keep HYDRA at bay will grow into one of the most powerful agencies in the world. And it will play an important role in the fights that will be fought for the soul of mankind. The last shield of humanity, as you intended."

Peggy suddenly understood where he was going. "So you are saying you came here…"

"…from the future. Or some version of it... But in order for the human race to survive you must build this facility. In secret." and he handed over a notebook.

"That sounds crazy." Peggy Carter turned through the pages full of technical drawings. "This is huge, much bigger than any other nuclear bunker plan that I have seen. And I don't even recognize some of this technology." she said. "How am I supposed to build this on blind faith based on the word of someone who could be a rambling madman?"

"I know it sounds crazy. But if you don't build this, all your other plans will not matter. Humanity will be destroyed by the inhuman powers we fail to understand or control. I wish I could prove it to you." He fished around in his pockets, and found his mobile phone. "Look – this is something you don't have yet. I cannot show you how it works, but 50 years from now, everyone will use these instead of telephones and cameras."

"It could be fake." Peggy said skeptically, but she couldn't help being pulled into his story.

"Ms Carter, you are a woman with a vision. You know about people with powers, objects with strange properties and different worlds. Why is travelling through time so unbelievable?" he asked then added after a pause "I mean I guess I wouldn't have believed it either…" he added with a charming grin.

Peggy didn't reply. The young man was right. She has seen things that she could not explain. Still she didn't know if she could trust him. "You told me you have news of Steve. Or was that just the pretext to meet me?" she asked.

"All I can tell you that he will be found again and you will meet him." he said with a warm smile, but she detected some sadness.

"Can you tell me where to find him?" Peggy inquired.

"I wish I could. But I don't know where precisely he was found, and bringing someone as powerful as the Captain back again too soon would most certainly alter too many things for this plan to work. I cannot temper with events, because it will lead to too many parameters and eventually we will not be able to calculate the timeline." he said and fidgeted nervously with his coaster.

"But you think, building a secret underground bunker will not change the future." she snapped at him.

"I am hoping it will. But we must try to avoid causing too many ripples in time." he said.

"Even if Steve and I have to waste years in the process…"

"What I found, Miss Carter, that love is an infinite energy that stretches through space and time. It is never wasted. He never stopped loving you, just as you never stopped loving him." He said and there was a slight tremor in his voice. "Even when you are separated by distance or time, that love connects you."

Peggy smiled at him "Sounds like you know a thing or two about being ripped apart. Does she have a name, Mr Fitz?"

"Jemma. Jemma Simmons. In fact, she may come passing through here. You were a childhood hero of hers and she is…"

"… let me guess, another agent of SHIELD."

"Indeed. I mean she – when it comes to you, she is a hopeless fangirl, and she may behave a bit odd..." Peggy watched his smile grow wistful as he clearly got lost down in memory lane for a moment. "If you see her, tell her that we'll fix it together."

"Fix what together?" Peggy looked at him inquisitively.

"Time." he shrugged. "One more thing. Please tell me that you have found a white obelisk …"

When she was a young teen, Jemma always dreamed of adventures; glamorous, secret trips as a spy, exciting discoveries that revolutionized science. She always imagined herself looking like Peggy Carter; sophisticated and brave, with bright red lips staring in the face of danger unfazed. To see her childhood hero enter a bar near Lake Ontario was unbelievable, but also strangely logical. Of course, who else better to convince of building a secret base than the founder of SHIELD.

She had been in town for three days, trying to lay low and interact with people as little as possible. She sat in diners in the corner during days, and in the bar at night, watching people, trying to pick up clues that could solve the mystery of the postcard.

She felt it was her chance and took a deep breath as she walked up to her. "Agent Carter, I apologize for interrupting your evening. You can't believe what an honour it is to meet you. Would you mind if we talked for a moment? My name is Jemma…"

"Simmons." Peggy Carter looked at her astonished. Jemma's heartbeat quickened.

"Yes. You met Fitz, then." she said, her voice raising with excitement. Some of the patrons looked at them.

"I met him a few months ago." Peggy replied looking at Jemma suspiciously. "He came to me with a rather outlandish story and a notebook. What do you know about it?"

"Well, if his story involved time travel and the destruction of Earth, then unfortunately, it is not only strange, but sadly true." Jemma nodded. "Can you tell me what is in this notebook?"

"I can do one better and show it to you, Ms Simmons." Peggy said. "Perhaps you can explain a couple of things to me." She left some bills at the bar and led Jemma over to her hotel room. She rummaged around in her luggage, pulled out a thick moleskin notebook and handed it over to Jemma.

Jemma opened the book and lovingly traced her fingers over the numbers and schematics scribbled in Fitz's familiar handwriting. She closed her eyes imagining him working feverishly, bent over the notebook. Then something occurred to her.

"I know it's a strange question, but how old was he when you met him?" she looked at Peggy.

"About your age. 30ish, I would think. We only had a brief conversation, so…" the secret agent smiled.

Jemma smiled back in relief. So, Fitz figured things out quite quickly it seemed. That was a relief, they already wasted so much time – and they were in a real danger to endlessly chase each other through the maze of time and universes never to meet again. Or meet only ever so briefly, a bittersweet reunion just to say goodbye, she thought with grief looking at Peggy.

Peggy broke the silence. "Fitz said that I will meet Steve Rogers again."

"Yes, that's right. You will meet him." Jemma smiled warmly.

"And I suppose you cannot tell me where to find him." Peggy asked hopefully.

Jemma felt a lump in her throat as she could physically feel the other woman's pain. "I am so sorry, but we cannot risk…"

"…too strong ripples in time…" Peggy finished. "That's what he said too."

Jemma nodded. "I will need some time to read through this."

"Take the time you need. So I suppose if the story is true, I had better start building it. You know, that's why I am here. As crazy as the story sounded, I started to scout out locations that fit the parameters your…" Peggy looked at her with questioningly.

"He's my boyfriend, I guess. And so much more. It's complicated." Jemma said blushing. They were undefinable. "You will build it here in this spot and I know it works, because I stood inside it and in one universe it holds everything that is left of humankind."

"I guess I will have no choice but to do my part then." Peggy said.

"I know that you will. You have been such an inspiration to so many of us." Jemma said.

She continued to look through Fitz's plans. It looked remarkably like the Lighthouse did in real life. Still, she noticed a couple of small differences, so she added some details, crossed out other parts, her neat handwriting lining up next to his. It was so mundane, something they have done countless times – still seeing their notes and ideas together made her strangely emotional. She felt his presence and absence keenly at same time.

Peggy watched her with a strange smile. "So that's what he meant. That you will fix it together.

He told me to tell that to you."

Jemma looked up from the notebook. "Yes, that sounds like him."

"I really hope you will find him again. Take it from me, do not to waste any time."

Jemma nodded. The wasted time was her biggest regret. "Do you know where he went after here?"

"He went through the white monolith."

"You have it then, that is good news." Jemma sighed in relief.

"He told me to hide the thing and not let anyone use it, except you." Peggy said.

"It's important that you do that. But where did he go? Or I should say when? He couldn't have known the coordinates." she frowned. "Still by the time I am in the future, he figured it out… So why is he not there? Did he mention anything else to you?"

"That's all I know Ms Simmons."

"Jemma, please." she interrupted with a wave of her hand.

"I am glad to have met you. If Agents of SHIELD are going to be like you, maybe all this work makes sense. You are a remarkable young woman." Peggy put her hand on Jemma's for a moment.

"Thank you. Maybe we will see each other again, Ms Carter."

"Peggy. Good luck, Jemma. I hope your plan works out."


	3. Chapter 3

Fitz woke up back in the same white room as before, but this time, he wasn't alone. A tall bald man sat in a chair across from him.

"Where am I? So it worked?" Fitz asked, disoriented.

"No, it is me, Enoch." he replied.

"You look remarkably human." Fitz observed sarcastically.

"This is just a costume really. We don't show ourselves to other races." Enoch replied calmly.

"So why didn't it work?" Fitz wondered.

"You have to go back and check what happened. Maybe there was another disturbance, another ripple that caused an anomaly."

Fitz nodded. "I'm getting used to this time-hopping anyways. So tell me, how does it work? Could I go back to a time when I am alive?"

"Theoretically yes, but it wouldn't be the same universe. You would make a new spiderweb. Fixing things will get more and more complicated as more variables enter into the equation." the alien explained.

"What happens if I die?" Fitz asked.

"Well, you will be dead I suppose." Enoch replied dryly. _Bloody aliens with their sarcasm_ , thought Fitz.

Then he clarified "I meant can you turn back time?"

"You couldn't. But someone else could thread back to the fork and with a different choice, in a different universe, you could live. But the path you died on will be lost for you forever."

"OK, so I need to go back and check on the construction. And we'll take it from there." Fitz concluded.

"That's right." Enoch said.

* * *

Peggy Carter was the last one again to leave the base, as usual. The secret underground construction was going well, but it consumed a lot of her time. She walked out to the parking lot. As she looked for her key, a figure stepped out of the shadow.

"We meet again, Ms Carter." he said with a small smile.

"I wondered when I would see you again after I was paid a visit by Jemma Simmons." Peggy replied.

"Jemma was here? When?" Fitz asked, heart beating fast.

"About a year ago."

"How did she know to come here?" he wondered in amazement.

"She said something about a clue you left for her to lead her here." _A clue?_ _I need to make sure to leave it,_ Fitz made the mental note.

"Have you started the construction?" Fitz asked her.

"Yes, like we discussed. Your girlfriend made some changes to your plan though. She said you wouldn't mind." Peggy replied. _Maybe that was the problem_ , Fitz thought.

"Can I see it?" he asked.

"Yes, of course. It's in my office. Follow me."

Fitz opened the notebook. His heart was racing. Maybe this was the way to find her again; leaving breadcrumbs that lead to each other, until they end up in the same bloody universe out of infinite parallel universes. He didn't like the math on that one. He looked through the pages, her neat writing correcting little details. Most of them were irrelevant things, they would not affect the structural integrity or the functionality of the construction. _Why would she do it? Unless… of course…she saw the place. Which means whatever future she was in, the plan worked._

On the next page he saw an annotation "Water purification!". On the last page he found another cryptic line: _maybe_ _2100_? _See you there. Be careful, roaches and Kree._

Fitz thought for a moment and turned to Peggy: "Did she say anything else?"

"Not really. She was worried like you that revealing too much information could result in drastic changes. She said that the plan worked and this place saved part of humankind."

Fitz nodded and thought for a moment. She came back because he left a clue – so this what he was supposed to do. His eyes fell on a couple of postcards from Lake Ontario on Peggy's desk. "Can I borrow one of these?" he asked.

"Yes, of course, you want to send it to the future? I don't know if the postal service is quite that reliable." Agent Carter quipped.

"Not exactly send." Fitz replied. He scribbled _"Working on it – Fitz"_ on the postcard. He also took a small notebook and started to fill it with numbers and coordinates, equations to show how to control the monolith. When he was done, he put the postcard and the notebook into a tin box, then he turned to Agent Carter "I need to hide this in the construction. Can you take me there?"

They went to the place and Fitz marvelled the scale and vastness of the bunker; the foundations were ready and some of the piping. He went into the lower level, where he found a vent hole and he hid the box inside.

When he was finished, he went back to find Peggy. "I need to leave now, Ms Carter. Thank you for everything. I'm not sure we'll see each other again."

"Good luck!" Peggy took his hand and squeezed it. "I hope you'll find her in time."

* * *

Jemma stepped through the portal, luckily entering an empty room. She heard footsteps and hid behind the door. As the footsteps receded, she carefully stepped out of the room and made her way down to the lower floors to find her friends.

She looked around the sea of people, huddled in corners, dressed in rags. The place looked the same, but still different. People were dragging themselves around aimlessly, but no one seemed to be in charge. Any semblance of organization was missing. _I must have made a mistake_ , thought Jemma _and ended up at the wrong time_.

She heard a scream, and pushed her way through the crowd to see what was happening. A woman was cradling a small girl who was bleeding from the leg. Jemma kneeled next to them. "I'm a doctor, I can help.

She applied pressure to the bleeding wound and yelled "Quick, give me a belt, alcohol and some clean cloth." Someone gave her a belt and some dubious looking rags. "This is all we have – medical supplies are long gone." said the man apologetically. Jemma stopped the bleeding and dressed the wound as best as she could.

"What's your name, sweetie?" she asked the girl.

"Lucy,"

"Stay with me, you will be all right, Lucy." Jemma said and gently stroked the child's dirty face.

"Who are you?" the girl asked in amazement.

"My name is Jemma Simmons. I am an agent of SHIELD. Me and my friends will come to help you, I promise Agent Coulson, May, Daisy, Mack and Yoyo – we will come back for you and help you. But I need to go and find them." She told the girl softly.

"You cannot go up to the surface, it is too dangerous. Nobody can survive there." the mother interjected.

"What happened to it?" Jemma asked.

"There was an attack, some 20 years ago, I was just a child. It started with earthquakes, more powerful than anyone has ever seen. Continents stated to drift apart, tides came in from the ocean and swept away great cities and then finally the core of the planet started to crack and Earth crumbled away in a matter of days. Only this bunker survived." The woman replied as the child listened to her with eyes wide open.

"What caused the earthquake?" Jemma turned to her.

"There was a lot of chaos that day, so nobody knows what happened, but from what I heard, it was the inhumans. They attacked us, nobody knows why. Something made their powers grow. And now all we have left is this wreckage. With no hope."

"There is always hope." Jemma replied. "You will find a way" she smiled at them.

 _I can't cause more ripples,_ Jemma thought and she slipped away quietly into a corner. She waited until the activity in the bunker subsided as people started to lie down to sleep. She creeped through the dark corridors; back to the secret room with the white monolith. She sat on the floor with the notebook and jotted down new calculations, hoping that this time she would end up back with the others.


End file.
